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After speaking out against FGM, I faced a backlash. That's why we all need to stand together

After coming out as a survivor of female genital mutilation, Nimko Ali heard from men who wanted to kill her and lost contact with people who she considered to be family. That's why we have to speak out on behalf of those who are still finding their voice

As we mark UN International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women I would like to take a moment and look at how far we have come this year in addressing female genital mutilation in the UK. We can truly say that the issue has been brought out of the shadows and into the mainstream. It has also been clearly categorised as violence against women and girls.

This was exactly my aim when I set up our anti-FGM organisation Daughters of Eve in 2010 along with Leyla Hussein and Sainab Abdi.

To some, it might seem that I have been talking about FGM for a long time, but in reality, it has been less than 12 months. I made the decision to stand up and talk about my experience because I knew that it was unfair to ask kids or others to come forward when I was too scared to do so myself. I also felt that if I talked openly, then the media would stop asking young women about their experiences, when they were clearly not ready to do so and might be putting themselves at risk of attack.

I had FGM at the age of seven, while on holiday in Dijbouti. When I told my teacher, she said that it was something that “happened to girls like me”. It was the first time I would experience the shocking fact that people did not see this form of abuse for what it was.

Growing up, I watched countless young British girls being failed, "othered" and sidelined – often by those whose job it was to safeguard from harm. I chose not to speak about FGM for a long time, as I knew that the pain of not being believed or understood would be almost impossible to bear.

I know how hard it is to speak out about FGM – not only because of the painful memory of reliving what happened to you, which can be overpowering in itself – but also the backlash. This is often what survivors are not fully prepared for.

We are told that by speaking up, you are "dishonouring your community, family and even yourself". Getting the courage to speak up to protect other girls is not enough – you also have to somehow muster up even more to defend yourself from attack.

In February, the Evening Standard published literally three lines about my experience of FGM, giving my name. The reaction I received was shocking. I found out that some men wanted to kill me and I lost contact with people who I considered to be family. There were some days this year when I cried so much, I did not think I would be able to get out of bed.

Following what has been a tremendous year of media advocacy on FGM, earlier this month, Channel 4’s The Cruel Cut, presented by Daughters of Eve’s Leyla Hussein, marked a watershed moment. Even before it aired, hundreds of people tweeted about how excited they were to see it. It was really exhilarating to be part of such a monumental national event and I could not wait to see how the conversation would develop.

Leyla used funny props such as our infamous "vagina cupcakes", a huge pink "vagina tent" and clay models to illustrate what really happens. She told her story along with other survivors. One woman spoke about how she had undergone FGM at the age of six and how, at 23, it is still an experience which affects her every single day.

Within minutes of the programme airing, the predictable stream of messages and emails to Daughters of Eve started to turn nasty. One message ended with the line: “Hope you die and painfully!”. The following morning I heard that one of the brave young women who spoke out was receiving the same type of abusive messages. While I am at least somewhat used to the backlash, every time I hear that the same thing is happening to other survivors, it breaks my heart.

The Met Police is sometimes given the blame for the fact there have been zero prosecutions for FGM in the UK, but they are really doing their best. As Keith Niven from Project Azure said at the launch of the Intercollegiate Recommendations on Tackling FGM in the UK in parliament in early November, there is no lack of intent; there is a huge lack of information. Without evidence, they cannot do anything.

However, while the Met Police has also been great in providing survivors with basic safety, if you are outside London, there is unfortunately little support available. And there is virtually no psychological or emotional support available anywhere, apart from that provided by survivors or survivor support groups like Leyla’s amazing Dahlia Project. This has to change.

We are now calling on the UK government to take charge once and for all. It needs to develop and implement a national action plan to prevent FGM; to orchestrate a national awareness-raising campaign to communicate risks and responsibilities; and to provide essential support for survivors, including psychological and emotional support – as well as adequate protection measures against any backlash for speaking out.

The Daughters of Eve and Equality Nowpetition will hopefully soon reach 100,000 signatories, so we can discuss the issue in parliament. There have already been some positive responses from eager MPs, so we are very hopeful that the political will is there to generate lasting change.

One of my mentors, Efua Dorkenoo from Equality Now, has been fighting this battle for more than 30 years. She knows that without government leadership, all the awareness-raising and mainstreaming efforts may not translate into real change. Systems have to be put in place, children at risk need to be fully protected and people have to be held accountable for their roles and responsibilities in safeguarding girls.

This has been an incredibly difficult year, but I am proud and know that we have already achieved a huge amount. The silence has been truly broken and my spirit is stronger than ever. I tell all survivors of FGM that nobody can take away their spirit. It is this spirit that keeps us fighting and growing stronger. I want survivors to know too that they are not alone and that I will continue to fight for them every single day.

There is no doubt that we have the quiet majority on our side – and the movement is growing, but I urge everyone to stand with survivors of FGM and speak out on behalf of those who are still finding their voice.

This is a fight for justice against those who use hatred and violence to silence and hold us back. It is a fight for British girls and women who desperately need your help.

Hannan Fodder: This week, Daniel Hannan gets his excuses in early

Since Daniel Hannan, a formerly obscure MEP, has emerged as the anointed intellectual of the Brexit elite, The Staggers is charting his ascendancy...

When I started this column, there were some nay-sayers talking Britain down by doubting that I was seriously going to write about Daniel Hannan every week. Surely no one could be that obsessed with the activities of one obscure MEP? And surely no politician could say enough ludicrous things to be worthy of such an obsession?

They were wrong, on both counts. Daniel and I are as one on this: Leave and Remain, working hand in glove to deliver on our shared national mission. There’s a lesson there for my fellow Remoaners, I’m sure.

Anyway. It’s week three, and just as I was worrying what I might write this week, Dan has ridden to the rescue by writing not one but two columns making the same argument – using, indeed, many of the exact same phrases (“not a club, but a protection racket”). Like all the most effective political campaigns, Dan has a message of the week.

First up, on Monday, there was this headline, in the conservative American journal, the Washington Examiner:

“We will get a good deal – because rational self-interest will overcome the Eurocrats’ fury”

The message of the two columns is straightforward: cooler heads will prevail. Britain wants an amicable separation. The EU needs Britain’s military strength and budget contributions, and both sides want to keep the single market intact.

The Con Home piece makes the further argument that it’s only the Eurocrats who want to be hardline about this. National governments – who have to answer to actual electorates – will be more willing to negotiate.

And so, for all the bluster now, Theresa May and Donald Tusk will be skipping through a meadow, arm in arm, before the year is out.

Before we go any further, I have a confession: I found myself nodding along with some of this. Yes, of course it’s in nobody’s interests to create unnecessary enmity between Britain and the continent. Of course no one will want to crash the economy. Of course.

I’ve been told by friends on the centre-right that Hannan has a compelling, faintly hypnotic quality when he speaks and, in retrospect, this brief moment of finding myself half-agreeing with him scares the living shit out of me. So from this point on, I’d like everyone to keep an eye on me in case I start going weird, and to give me a sharp whack round the back of the head if you ever catch me starting a tweet with the word, “Friends-”.

Anyway. Shortly after reading things, reality began to dawn for me in a way it apparently hasn’t for Daniel Hannan, and I began cataloguing the ways in which his argument is stupid.

Problem number one: Remarkably for a man who’s been in the European Parliament for nearly two decades, he’s misunderstood the EU. He notes that “deeper integration can be more like a religious dogma than a political creed”, but entirely misses the reason for this. For many Europeans, especially those from countries which didn’t have as much fun in the Second World War as Britain did, the EU, for all its myriad flaws, is something to which they feel an emotional attachment: not their country, but not something entirely separate from it either.

Consequently, it’s neither a club, nor a “protection racket”: it’s more akin to a family. A rational and sensible Brexit will be difficult for the exact same reasons that so few divorcing couples rationally agree not to bother wasting money on lawyers: because the very act of leaving feels like a betrayal.

Problem number two: even if everyone was to negotiate purely in terms of rational interest, our interests are not the same. The over-riding goal of German policy for decades has been to hold the EU together, even if that creates other problems. (Exhibit A: Greece.) So there’s at least a chance that the German leadership will genuinely see deterring more departures as more important than mutual prosperity or a good relationship with Britain.

And France, whose presidential candidates are lining up to give Britain a kicking, is mysteriously not mentioned anywhere in either of Daniel’s columns, presumably because doing so would undermine his argument.

So – the list of priorities Hannan describes may look rational from a British perspective. Unfortunately, though, the people on the other side of the negotiating table won’t have a British perspective.

Problem number three is this line from the Con Home piece:

“Might it truly be more interested in deterring states from leaving than in promoting the welfare of its peoples? If so, there surely can be no further doubt that we were right to opt out.”

I could go on, about how there’s no reason to think that Daniel’s relatively gentle vision of Brexit is shared by Nigel Farage, UKIP, or a significant number of those who voted Leave. Or about the polls which show that, far from the EU’s response to the referendum pushing more European nations towards the door, support for the union has actually spiked since the referendum – that Britain has become not a beacon of hope but a cautionary tale.

But I’m running out of words, and there’ll be other chances to explore such things. So instead I’m going to end on this:

Hannan’s argument – that only an irrational Europe would not deliver a good Brexit – is remarkably, parodically self-serving. It allows him to believe that, if Brexit goes horribly wrong, well, it must all be the fault of those inflexible Eurocrats, mustn’t it? It can’t possibly be because Brexit was a bad idea in the first place, or because liberal Leavers used nasty, populist ones to achieve their goals.

Read today, there are elements of Hannan’s columns that are compelling, even persuasive. From the perspective of 2020, I fear, they might simply read like one long explanation of why nothing that has happened since will have been his fault.

Jonn Elledge is the editor of the New Statesman's sister site CityMetric. He is on Twitter, far too much, as @JonnElledge.